Chapter XXXIII: Appendix: F (12)

[1292] 'July 19, 1763. I was with Mr. Johnson to-day. I was in his garret up four pair of stairs; it is very airy, commands a view of St. Paul's and many a brick roof. He has many good books, but they are all lying in confusion and dust.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 30. On Good Friday, 1764, Johnson made the following entry:--'I hope to put my rooms in order: Disorder I have found one great cause of idleness.' On his birth-day in the same year he wrote:--'To-morrow I purpose to regulate my room.' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 50, 60.

[1293] See _ante_, p. 140, and _post_, under Sept. 9, 1779.

[1294] Afterwards Rector of Mamhead, Devonshire. He is the grandfather of the present Bishop of London. He and Boswell had been fellow-students at the University of Edinburgh, and seemed in youth to have had an equal amount of conceit. 'Recollect,' wrote Boswell, 'how you and I flattered ourselves that we were to be the greatest men of our age.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 159. They began to correspond at least as early as 1758. The last letter was one from Boswell on his death-bed. Johnson thus mentions Temple (_Works_, viii. 480):--'Gray's character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell by the Revd. Mr. Temple, Rector of St. Gluvias in Cornwall; and am as willing as his warmest well-wisher to believe it true.'

[1295] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 240) quotes the following by Edmund Smith, and written some time after 1708:--'It will sound oddly to posterity, that, in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of the most literary property in 1710, whether by wise, most learned, and most generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a mechanick should be better secured than that of a scholar! that the poorest manual operations should be more valued than the noblest products of the brain! that it should be felony to rob a cobbler of a pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best authour of his whole subsistence! that nothing should make a man a sure title to his own writings but the stupidity of them!' See _post_, May 8, 1773, and Feb.7, 1774; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17 and 20, 1773.

[1296] The question arose, after the passing of the first statute respecting literary property in 1710, whether by certain of its provisions this perpetual copyright at common law was extinguished for the future. The question was solemnly argued before the Court of King's Bench, when Lord Mansfield presided, in 1769. The result was a decision in favour of the common-law right as unaltered by the statute, with the disapproval however of Mr. Justice Yates. In 1774 the same point was brought before the House of Lords, and the decision of the court below reversed by a majority of six judges in eleven, as Lord Mansfield, who adhered to the opinion of the minority, declined to interfere; it being very unusual, from motives of delicacy, for a peer to support his own judgment on appeal to the House of Lords. _Penny Cylco_. viii. I. See _post_, Feb. 7, 1774. Lord Shelburne, on Feb 27, 1774, humourously describes the scene in the Lords to the Earl of Chatham:--'Lord Mansfield showed himself the merest Captain Bobadil that, I suppose, ever existed in real life. You can, perhaps, imagine to yourself the Bishop of Carlyle, an old metaphysical head of a college, reading a paper, not a speech, out of an old sermon book, with very bad sight leaning on the table, Lord Mansfield sitting at it, with eyes of fixed melancholy looking at him, knowing that the bishop's were the only eyes in the House who could not meet his; the judges behind him, full of rage at being drawn into so absurd an opinion, and abandoned in it by their chief; the Bishops waking, as your Lordship knows they do, just before they vote, and staring on finding something the matter; while Lord Townshend was close to the bar, getting Mr. Dunning to put up his glass to look at the head of criminal justice.' _Chatham Corres_. iv. 327.

[1297] See _post_ April 15 1778, note.

[1298] Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_ iii. 178), complaining of the high prices of English books, describes 'the excessive artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and an octavo into a quarto with white-lines, exorbitant margins, &c., to such a degree that the selling of paper seems now the object, and printing on it only the pretence.'

[1299] Boswell was on friendly terms with him. He wrote to Erskine on Dec. 2, 1761:--'I am just now returned from eating a most excellent pig with the most magnificent Donaldson.' _Boswell and Erskine Correspondence_, p. 20.

[1300] Dr. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 516) says that Lord Mansfield this year (1769) 'talking of Hume and Robertson's _Histories_, said that though he could point out few or no faults in them, yet, when he was reading their books, he did not think he was reading English.' See _post_, ii. 72, for Hume's Scotticisms. Hume went to France in 1734 when he was 23 years old and stayed there three years. Hume's _Autobiography_, p. vii. He never mastered French colloquially. Lord Charlemont, who met him in Turin in 1748, says:--'His speech in English was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable.' Hardy's _Charlemont_, i. 15. Horace Walpole, who met him in Paris in 1765, writes (_Letters_, iv. 426):--'Mr. Hume is the only thing in the world that they [the French] believe implicitly; which they must do, for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 122) says of Hume's writings:--'Their careless inimitable beauties often forced me to close the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair.' Dr. Beattie (_Life_, p. 243) wrote on Jan. 5, 1778:--'We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English from books, like a dead language, which we understand, but cannot speak.' He adds:--'I have spent some years in labouring to acquire the art of giving a vernacular cast to the English we write.' Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_, p. 222) says:--'Since we began to affect speaking a foreign language, which the English dialect is to us, humour, it must be confessed, is less apparent in conversation.'

[1301] _Discours sur L'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les hommes_, 1754.

[1302] 'I have indeed myself observed that my banker ever bows lowest to me when I wear my full-bottomed wig, and writes me Mr. or Esq., accordingly as he sees me dressed.' _Spectator_, No. 150.

[1303] Mr. Croker, quoting Mr. Wright, says:--'_See his Quantulumanque_ (sic) _concerning Money_.' I have read Petty's _Quantulumcunque_, but do not find the passage in it.

[1304] Johnson told Dr. Burney that Goldsmith said, when he first began to write, he determined to commit to paper nothing but what was _new_; but he afterwards found that what was _new_ was false, and from that time was no longer solicitous about novelty. BURNEY. Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_, i. 421) says that this note 'is another instance of the many various and doubtful forms in which stories about Johnson and Goldsmith are apt to appear when once we lose sight of the trustworthy Boswell. This is obviously a mere confused recollection of what is correctly told by Boswell [_post_, March 26, 1779].' There is much truth in Mr. Forster's general remark: nevertheless Burney likely enough repeated to the best of his memory what he had himself heard from Johnson.

[1305] 'Their [the ancient moralists'] arguments have been, indeed, so unsuccessful, that I know not whether it can be shewn, that by all the wit and reason which this favourite cause has called forth a single convert was ever made; that even one man has refused to be rich, when to be rich was in his power, from the conviction of the greater happiness of a narrow fortune.' Johnson's _Works_, ii. 278. See _post_, June 3, 1781, and June 3, Sept. 7, and Dec. 7, 1782.

[1306] Johnson (_Works_, vi. 440) shows how much Frederick owed to 'the difficulties of his youth.' 'Kings, without this help from temporary infelicity, see the world in a mist, which magnifies everything near them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few are able to extend by the mere force of curiosity.' He next points out what Cromwell 'owed to the private condition in which he first entered the world;' and continues:--'The King of Prussia brought to the throne the knowledge of a private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of this general acquaintance with the world there may be found some traces in his whole life. His conversation is like that of other men upon common topicks, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole conduct is that of a man who has to do with men.'

[1307] See _ante_ p. 408

[1308] See _ante_, p. 298.

[1309] That this was Mr. Dempster seems likely from the _Letters of Boswell_ (p. 34), where Boswell says:--'I had prodigious satisfaction to find Dempster's sophistry (which he has learnt from Hume and Rousseau) vanquished by the solid sense and vigorous reasoning of Johnson. Dempster,' he continues, 'was as happy as a vanquished argumentator could be.' The character of the 'benevolent good man' suits Dempster (see _post_, under Feb. 7, 1775, where Boswell calls him 'the virtuous and candid Dempster'), while that of the 'noted infidel writer' suits Hume. We find Boswell, Johnson, and Dempster again dining together on May 9, 1772.

[1310]

'Thou wilt at best but suck a bull, Or sheer swine, all cry and no wool.'

_Hudibras_, Part i. Canto I. 1. 851.

Dr. Z. Grey, in his note on these lines, quotes the proverbial saying 'As wise as the Waltham calf that went nine times to suck a bull.' He quotes also from _The Spectator_, No. 138, the passage where the Cynic said of two disputants, 'One of these fellows is milking a ram, and the other holds the pail.'

[1311] The writer of the article _Vacuum_ in the _Penny Cyclo_. (xxvi. 76), quoting Johnson's words, adds:--'That is, either all space is full of matter, or there are parts of space which have no matter. The alternative is undeniable, and the inference to which the modern philosophy would give the greatest probablility is, that all space is full of matter in the common sense of the word, but really occupied by particles of matter with vacuous interstices.'

[1312] 'When any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should really have happened.' Humes _Essay on Miracles_, Part i. See _post_ Sept. 22 1777, where Boswell again quoted this passage.

[1313] A coffee-house over against Catherine Street, now the site of a tourists' ticket office. _Athenaeum_, No. 3041.

[1314] Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, i. 202) that Johnson once said to him:--'Whenever it is the duty of a young and old man to act at the same time with a spirit of independence and generosity; we may always have reason to hope that the young man will ardently perform, and to fear that the old man will desert, his duty.'

[1315] Boswell thus writes of this evening:--'I learn more from him than from any man I ever was with. He told me a very odd thing, that he knew at eighteen as much as he does now; that is to say, his judgment is much stronger, but he had then stored up almost all the facts he has now, and he says that he has led but an idle life; only think, Temple, of that!' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 34. See _ante_, p. 56, and _post_, ii. 36. He told Windham in 1784 'that he read Latin with as much ease when he went to college as at present.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 17.

[1316] Johnson in 1739 wrote of 'those distempers and depressions, from which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of the human body, sometimes fly for relief to wine instead of exercise, and purchase temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful consequences.' _Works_, vi. 271. In _The Rambler_, No. 85, he says:--'How much happiness is gained, and how much misery is escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.' Boswell records (_Hebrides_, Sept. 24, 1773):--'Dr. Johnson told us at breakfast, that he rode harder at a fox-chace than anybody.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 206) says:--'He certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hunter with a good firmness, and, though he would follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, would never own himself either tired or amused. I think no praise ever went so close to his heart, as when Mr. Hamilton called out one day upon Brighthelmstone Downs, "Why Johnson rides as well, for aught I see, as the most illiterate fellow in England."' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1777:--'No season ever was finer. Barley, malt, beer and money. There is the series of ideas. The deep logicians call it a _sorites_. _I hope my master will no longer endure the reproach of not keeping me a horse_.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 360. See _post_, March 19 and 28, 1776, Sept. 20, 1777, and Nov. 21, 1778.

[1317] This _one_ Mrs. Macaulay was the same personage who afterwards made herself so much known as 'the celebrated female historian.' BOSWELL. Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 234) tells the following story of Mrs. Macaulay's daughter:--'Desirous from civility to take some notice of her, and finding she was reading _Shakespeare_, I asked her if she was not delighted with many parts of _King John_. "I never read the _Kings_, ma'am," was the truly characteristic reply.' See _post_, April 13, 1773, and May 15, 1776.

[1318] This speech was perhaps suggested to Johnson by the following passage in _The Government of the Tongue_ (p. 106)--a book which he quotes in his _Dictionary_:--'Lycurgus once said to one who importuned him to establish a popular parity in the state, "Do thou," says he, "begin it first in thine own family."'

[1319] The first volume was published in 1756, the second in 1782.

[1320] Warton, to use his own words, 'did not think Pope at the head of his profession. In other words, in that species of poetry wherein Pope excelled, he is superior to all mankind; and I only say that this species of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art.' He disposes the English poets in four classes, placing in the first only Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. 'In the second class should be ranked such as possessed the true poetical genius in a more moderate degree, but who had noble talents for moral, ethical, and panegyrical poetry.' In this class, in his concluding volume, he says, 'we may venture to assign Pope a place, just above Dryden. Yet, to bring our minds steadily to make this decision, we must forget, for a moment, the divine _Music Ode of Dryden_; and may, perhaps, then be compelled to confess that though Dryden be the greater genius, yet Pope is the better artist.' Warton's _Essay_, i. i, vii. and ii. 404. See _post_, March 31, 1772.

[1321] Mr. Croker believes Joseph Warton was meant. His father, however, had been Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was afterwards Vicar of Basingstoke and Cobham, and Professor of Poetry in his own University, so that the son could scarcely be described as being 'originally poor.' It is, no doubt, after Boswell's fashion to introduce in consecutive paragraphs the same person once by name and once anonymously; but then the 'certain author who disgusted Boswell by his forwardness,' mentioned just before Warton, may be Warton himself.

[1322] 'When he arrived at Eton he could not make a verse; that is, he wanted a point indispensable with us to a certain rank in our system. But this wonderful boy, having satisfied the Master [Dr. Barnard] that he was an admirable scholar, and possessed of genius, was at once placed at the head of a form. He acquired the rules of Latin verse; tried his powers; and perceiving that he could not rise above his rivals in Virgil, Ovid, or the lyric of Horace, he took up the _sermoni propiora_, and there overshadowed all competitors. In the following lines he describes the hammer of the auctioneer with a mock sublimity which turns Horace into Virgil:--

'Jam-jamque cadit, celerique recursu Erigitur, lapsum retrahens, perque aera nutat.'

Nichols's _Lit. Anec_. viii. 547.

Horace Walpole wrote of him in Sept. 1765 (_Letters_, iv. 411):--'He is a very extraordinary young man for variety of learning. He is rather too wise for his age, and too fond of showing it; but when he has seen more of the world, he will choose to know less.' He died at Rome in the following year. Hume, on hearing the news, wrote to Adam Smith:--'Were you and I together, dear Smith, we should shed tears at present for the death of poor Sir James Macdonald. We could not possibly have suffered a greater loss than in that valuable young man.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 349. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 5, 1773.

[1323] Boswell says that Macdonald had for Johnson 'a _great_ terrour.' (_Boswelliana_, p. 216.) Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 329) says:--'It is a fact that a certain nobleman, an intimate friend of Reynolds, had strangely conceived in his mind such a formidable idea of all those persons who had gained great fame as literary characters, that I have heard Sir Joshua say, he verily believed he could no more have prevailed upon this noble person to dine at the same table with Johnson and Goldsmith than with two tigers.' According to Mr. Seward (_Biographiana_, p. 600), Mrs. Cotterell having one day asked Dr. Johnson to introduce her to a celebrated writer, 'Dearest madam,' said he, 'you had better let it alone; the best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.' Mr. Seward refers to _The Rambler_, No. 14, where Johnson says that 'there has often been observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an authour and his writings.'

[1324] See _post_, Jan. 19, 1775. In his _Hebrides_ (p. i) Boswell writes:--'When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design to Voltaire. He looked at me as if I had talked of going to the North Pole, and said, "You do not insist on my accompanying you?" "No, Sir." "Then I am very willing you should go."'

[1325] 'When he went through the streets he desired to have one to lead him by the hand. They asked his opinion of the high church. He answered that it was a large rock, yet there were some in St. Kilda much higher, but that these were the best caves he ever saw; for that was the idea which he conceived of the pillars and arches upon which the church stands.' M. Martin's _Western Isles_, p. 297. Mr. Croker compares the passage in _The Spectator_ (No. 50), in which an Indian king is made to say of St. Paul's:--'It was probably at first an huge misshapen rock that grew upon the top of the hill, which the natives of the country (after having cut it into a kind of regular figure) bored and hollowed with incredible pains and industry.'

[1326] Boswell, writing to Temple the next day, slightly varies these words:--'He said, "My dear Boswell, it would give me great pain to part with you, if I thought we were not to meet again."' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 34.

[1327] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 43) protests against 'the trite and lavish praise of the happiness of our boyish years, which is echoed with so much affectation in the world. That happiness I have never known, that time I have never regretted. The poet may gaily describe the short hours of recreation; but he forgets the daily tedious labours of the school, which is approached each morning with anxious and reluctant steps.' See _ante_, p. 44, and _post_, under Feb. 27, 1772.

[1328] About fame Gibbon felt much as Johnson did. 'I am disgusted,' he wrote (_ib_. 272), 'with the affectation of men of letters, who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow, and that their fame (which sometimes is no insupportable weight) affords a poor compensation for envy, censure, and persecution. My own experience, at least, has taught me a very different lesson; twenty happy years have been animated by the labour of my _History_, and its success has given me a name, a rank, a character, in the world, to which I should not otherwise have been entitled.'

[1329] See _ante_, p. 432.

[1330] See _ante_, p. 332.

[1331] This opinion was given by him more at large at a subsequent period. See _Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 32 [Aug. 16]. BOSWELL. 'That Swift was its author, though it be universally believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any evidence; but no other claimant can be produced, and he did not deny it when Archbishop Sharpe and the Duchess of Somerset, by showing it to the Queen, debarred him from a bishoprick.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 197. See also _post_, March 24, 1775. Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, ii. 61) that Johnson said 'that if Swift really was the author of _The Tale of the Tub_, as the best of his other performances were of a very inferior merit, he should have hanged himself after he had written it.' Scott (_Life of Swift_, ed. 1834, p. 77) says:--'Mrs. Whiteway observed the Dean, in the latter years of his life [in 1735], looking over the _Tale_, when suddenly closing the book he muttered, in an unconscious soliloquy, "Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" She begged it of him, who made some excuse at the moment; but on her birthday he presented her with it inscribed, "From her affectionate cousin." On observing the inscription, she ventured to say, "I wish, Sir, you had said the gift of the author!" The Dean bowed, smiled good-humouredly, and answered, "No, I thank you," in a very significant manner.' There is this to be said of Johnson's incredulity about the _Tale of a Tub_, that the _History of John Bull_ and the _Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus_, though both by Arbuthnot, were commonly assigned to Swift and are printed in his _Works_.

[1332] 'Thomson thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet;--the eye that distinguishes in everything presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 377. See _post_, ii. 63, and April 11, 1776.

[1333] Burke seems to be meant. See _post_, April 25, 1778, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, and Sept. 15, 1773.--It is strange however that, while in these three places Boswell mentions Burke's name, he should leave a blank here. In _Boswelliana_, p. 328, Boswell records:--'Langton said Burke hammered his wit upon an anvil, and the iron was cold. There were no sparks flashing and flying all about.'

[1334] In _Boswelliana_ (p. 214) this anecdote is thus given:--'Boswell was talking to Mr. Samuel Johnson of Mr. Sheridan's enthusiasm for the advancement of eloquence. "Sir," said Mr. Johnson, "it won't do. He cannot carry through his scheme. He is like a man attempting to stride the English Channel. Sir, the cause bears no proportion to the effect. It is setting up a candle at Whitechapel to give light at Westminster."' See also _ante_, p. 385, and _post_. Oct. 16, 1969, April 18 and May 17, 1783.

[1335] Most likely Boswell himself. See _ante_, p. 410.

[1336] 'Let a Frenchman talk twice with a minister of state, he desires no more to furnish out a volume.' Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xvi. 197. Lord Chesterfield wrote from Paris in 1741:--'They [the Parisians] despise us, and with reason, for our ill-breeding; on the other hand, we despite them for their want of learning, and we are in the right of it.' _Supplement to Chesterfield's Letters_, p. 49. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14, 1773.

[1337] 'Dr. Johnson said that he had been told by an acquaintance of Sir Isaac Newton, that in early life he started as a clamorous infidel.' Seward's _Anecdotes_, ii. 324. In Brewster's _Life of Newton_ I find no mention of early infidelity. On the contrary, Newton had been described as one who 'had been a searcher of the Scriptures from his youth' (ii. 314). Brewster says that 'some foreign writers have endeavoured to shew that his theological writings were composed at a late period of life, when his mind was in its dotage.' It was not so, however. _Ib_. p. 315.

[1338] I fully intended to have followed advice of such weight; but having staid much longer both in Germany and Italy than I proposed to do, and having also visited Corsica, I found that I had exceeded the time allowed me by my father, and hastened to France in my way homewards. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 410.

[1339]

'Has heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore? No secret island in the boundless main? No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain?'

Johnson looked upon the discovery of America as a misfortune to mankind. In _Taxation no Tyranny_ (_Works_, vi. 233) he says that 'no part of the world has yet had reason to rejoice that Columbus found at last reception and employment. In the same year, in a year hitherto disastrous to mankind, by the Portuguese was discovered the passage of the Indies, and by the Spaniards the coast of America.' On March 4, 1773, he wrote (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 248):--'I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.' See _ante_, p. 308, note 2, and post, March 21, 1775, and under Dec. 24, 1783.

[1340] See _ante_, p. 394, note 2.

[1341] _Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, &c.,_ by Samuel Derrick, 1767.

[1342] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 104 [Aug. 27, 1773]. BOSWELL.

[1343] Ibid. p. 142 [242, Sept. 22, 1773]. BOSWELL. Johnson added:--'but it was nothing.' Derrick, in 1760, published Dryden's _Misc. Works_, with an _Account of his Life_.

[1344] He published a biographical work, containing an account of eminent writers, in three vols. 8vo. BOSWELL.

[1345]

'Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day, And stretched on bulks, as usual, poets lay.'

_The Dunciad_, ii. 420.

In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 10, in which is described the dinner given by S---- to the poor authors, of one of them it is said:--'The only secret which he ever kept was the place of his lodgings; but it was believed that during the heats of summer he commonly took his repose upon a bulk.' Johnson defines _bulk_ as _a part of a building jutting out_.

[1346] 'Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its ideas ... without knowing why we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget.' _Rasselas_, ch. xi.

[1347] In the days of Old London Bridge, as Mr. Croker points out, even when the tide would have allowed passengers to shoot it, those who were prudent landed above the bridge, and walked to some wharf below it.

[1348] All who are acquainted with the history of religion, (the most important, surely, that concerns the human mind,) know that the appellation of Methodists was first given to a society of students in the University of Oxford, who about the year 1730 were distinguished by an earnest and _methodical_ attention to devout exercises. This disposition of mind is not a novelty, or peculiar to any sect, but has been, and still may be found, in many christians of every denomination. Johnson himself was, in a dignified manner, a Methodist. In his _Rambler_, No. 110, he mentions with respect 'the whole discipline of regulated piety;' and in his _Prayers and Meditations_, many instances occur of his anxious examination into his spiritual state. That this religious earnestness, and in particular an observation of the influence of the Holy Spirit, has sometimes degenerated into folly, and sometimes been counterfeited for base purposes, cannot be denied. But it is not, therefore, fair to decry it when genuine. The principal argument in reason and good sense against methodism is, that it tends to debase human nature, and prevent the generous exertions of goodness, by an unworthy supposition that GOD will pay no regard to them; although it is positively said in the scriptures that He 'will reward every man according to his works.' [St. Matthew xvi. 27.] But I am happy to have it [in] my power to do justice to those whom it is the fashion to ridicule, without any knowledge of their tenets; and this I can do by quoting a passage from one of their best apologists, Mr. Milner, who thus expresses their doctrine upon this subject. 'Justified by faith, renewed in his faculties, and constrained by the love of Christ, their believer moves in the sphere of love and gratitude, and all his _duties_ flow more or less from this principle. And though _they are accumulating for him in heaven a treasure of bliss proportioned to his faithfulness and activity, and it is by no means inconsistent with his principles to feel the force of this consideration_, yet love itself sweetens every duty to his mind; and he thinks there is no absurdity in his feeling the love of GOD as the grand commanding principle of his life.' _Essays on several religious Subjects, &c., by Joseph Milner, A.M., Master of the Grammar School of Kingston upon-Hull, 1789, p_. 11. BOSWELL. Southey (_Life of Wesley_, i. 41), mentioning the names given at Oxford to Wesley and his followers, continues:--'One person with less irreverence and more learning observed, in reference to their methodical manner of life, that a new sect of Methodists was sprung up, alluding to the ancient school of physicians known by that name.' Wesley, in 1744, wrote _The Humble Address to the King of the Societies in derision called Methodists. Journal_, i. 437. He often speaks of 'the people called Methodists,' but sometimes he uses the term without any qualification. Mrs. Thrale, in 1780, wrote to Johnson:--'Methodist is considered always a term of reproach, I trust, because I never yet did hear that any one person called himself a Methodist.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 119.

[1349] Wesley said:--'We should constantly use the most common, little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords. When first I talked at Oxford to plain people in the Castle [the prison] or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly obliged me to alter my style, and adopt the language of those I spoke to; and yet there is a dignity in their simplicity, which is not disagreeable to those of the highest rank.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 431. See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_, Oct. 12, 1779, Aug. 30, 1780, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773.

[1350] In the original, _struck_.

[1351] _Epigram_, Lib. ii. 'In Elizabeth. Angliae Reg.' MALONE.

[1352] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23.

[1353] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 5. Johnson, when a boy, turned the line thus:--'And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.' _Ante_, p. 51.

[1354] Boswell said of Paoli's talk about great men:--'I regret that the fire with which he spoke upon such occasions so dazzled me, that I could not recollect his sayings, so as to write them down when I retired from his presence.' _Corsica_, p. 197.

[1355] More passages than one in Boswell's _Letters to Temple_ shew this absence of relish. Thus in 1775 he writes:--'I perceive some dawnings of taste for the country' (p. 216); and again:--'I will force a taste for natural beauties' (p. 219).

[1356] Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 118.

[1357] See _post_, April 2, 1775, and April 17, 1778.

[1358] My friend Sir Michael Le Fleming. This gentleman, with all his experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a blunt dignity about him on every occasion.' BOSWELL.

[1359] Wordsworth's lines to the Baronet's daughter, Lady Fleming, might be applied to the father:--

'Lives there a man whose sole delights Are trivial pomp and city noise, Hardening a heart that loathes or slights What every natural heart enjoys?'

Wordsworth's _Poems_, iv. 338.

[1360] Afterwards Lord Stowell. He was a member of Doctors' Commons, the college of Civilians in London, who practised in the Ecclesiastical Courts and the Court of the Admiralty. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14, 1773.

[1361] He repeated this advice on the death of Boswell's father, _post_, Sept. 7, 1782.

[1362] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 159) describes 'the sullen dignity of the old castle.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4. 1773.

[1363] Probably Burke's _Vindication of Natural Society_, published in 1756 when Burke was twenty-six.

[1364] See _ante_, p. 421.

[1365] Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:--'My departure fills me with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 46.

[1366] Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.'

[1367] Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth:--'Reverend Sir,--I take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham's works in English. Though Mr. Bennet's name is in the title, the editor was in reality Mr. Johnson, the author of the _Rambler_, who wrote the life of the author, and added several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his advantage,' &c.--CROKER. Very likely Davies exaggerated Johnson's share in the book. Bennet's edition was published, not in 1763, but in 1761.

[1368] 'Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon's opinions caused by the reign of terror:--'He became a warm and zealous advocate for every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where French affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.' _Gibbons's Misc. Works_, i. 328. One of Gibbon's correspondents told him in 1792, that the _Wealth of Nations_ had been condemned by the Inquisition on account of 'the lowness of its style and the looseness of the morals which it inculcates.' _Ib_. ii. 479. See also _post_, May 7, 1773.

[1369] Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773:--'This morning I saw at breakfast Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 110. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773. Spence published an _Account of Blacklock_, in which he meanly omitted any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often with the terms expressing colours, he had formed some false associations, but that they were of the intellectual kind. The illumination of the sun, for instance, he supposed to resemble the presence of a friend.' _Ib_. p. 389.

[1370] They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson's _Itinerary_, i. 323.

[1371] Mackintosh (_Life_, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III, says that 'torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country of Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had objected to torture? I think not.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1742 (p. 660) it is stated that 'the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture in his dominions.' In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an English physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montesquieu in the _Esprit des Lois_, vi. 17, published in 1748, writing of 'la question ou torture centre les criminels,' says:--'Nous voyons aujourd'hui une nation très-bien policée [la nation anglaise] la rejeter sans inconvénient. Elle n'est donc pas nécessaire par sa nature.' Boswell in 1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. _Corsica_, p. 158. Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had been put to death with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues--'Mais un roi a-t-il le temps de songer à ces menus details d'horreurs au milieu de ses fètes, de ses conquêtes, et de ses mattresses? Daignez vous en occuper, ô Louis XVI, vous qui n'avez aucune de ces distractions!' Voltaire's _Works_, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before Voltaire thus wrote, had been shown _la chambre de question_--the torture-chamber-_in Paris_. _Post_, Oct. 17, 1775. It was not till the Revolution that torture was abolished in France. One of the Scotch judges in 1793, at the trial of Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition (_post_, June 3, 1781, note), 'asserted that now the torture was banished, there was no adequate punishment for sedition.' _Parl. Hist_. xxx. 1569.

[1372] 'A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and drink.' _Ecclesiasticus_, xxx. 25.

'Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet, Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.' _Trinummus_, act 2, sc. 4.

Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 149) records that 'Johnson often said, "that wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong; for," continued he, "a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things."' Yet he 'used to say that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but little the dignity of human nature.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 204.

[1373] This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than gulosity. It is entitled _The art of living at the cost of others_. Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children:--'Gluttony is, I think, less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 298.

[1374] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 355) mentions 'the greediness with which he ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence at the moment of refection.'

[1375] Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says:--'He fed heartily, but not voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any dish that pleased his palate.'

[1376] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:--'Last week I saw flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man has his _genius_, and that the great rule by which all excellence is attained and all success procured, is to follow _genius_; and have you not observed in all our conversations that my _genius_ is always in extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very merry; very sour or very kind? And would you have me cross my _genius_ when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to abstinence?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166.

[1377] 'This,' he told Boswell, 'was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 4, 1773. See _post_, April 17, 1778.

[1378] In the last year of his life, when he knew that his appetite was diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have now an inclination to luxury which even your table did not excite; _for till now my talk was more about the dishes than my thoughts_. I remember you commended me for seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your table; I am able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew when the reduction began, nor should have known what it was made, had not you told me. _I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease will, I hope, be cured_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362.

[1379] Johnson's visit to Gordon and Maclaurin are just mentioned in Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11, 1772.

[1380] The only nobleman with whom he dined 'about the same time' was Lord Elibank. After dining with him, 'he supped,' says Boswell, 'with my wife and myself.' _Ib_.

[1381] See _post_, April 15, 1778.

[1382] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 102) says, 'Johnson's own notions about eating were nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef were his favourite dainties.' Cradock saw Burke at a tavern dinner send Johnson a very small piece of a pie, the crust of which was made with bad butter. 'Johnson soon returned his plate for more. Burke exclaimed:--"I am glad that you are able so well to relish this pie." Johnson, not at all pleased that what he ate should ever be noticed, retorted:--"There is a time of life, Sir, when a man requires the repairs of a table."' Cradock's _Memoirs_, i. 229. A passage in Baretti's _Italy_, ii. 316, seems to show that English eating in general was not delicate. 'I once heard a Frenchman swear,' he writes, 'that he hated the English, "parce qu'ils versent du beurre fondu sur leur veau rod."'

[1383] 'He had an abhorrence of affectation,' said Mr. Langton. _Post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[1384] At college he would not let his companions say _prodigious_. _Post_, April 17, 1778.

[1385] See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. Dugald Stewart quotes a saying of Turgot:--'He who had never doubted of the existence of matter might be assured he had no turn for metaphysical disquisitions.' _Life of Reid_, p. 416.

[1386] Claude Buffier, born 1661, died 1737. Author of _Traité despremières vérités et de la source de nos jugements_.

[1387]

'Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride Turns you from sound philosophy aside.'

Pope's _Satires_, ii. 5.

[1388] Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 71) said that 'Burke's treatise on the _Sublime and Beautiful_ is rather a proof that his mind was not formed for pure philosophy; and if we may believe Boswell that it was once the intention of Mr. Burke to have written against Berkeley, we may be assured that he would not have been successful in answering that great speculator; or, to speak more correctly, that he could not have discovered the true nature of the questions in dispute, and thus have afforded the only answer consistent with the limits of the human faculties.'

[1389] Goldsmith's _Retaliation_.

[1390] I have the following autograph letter written by Johnson to Dr. Taylor three weeks after Boswell's departure.

'DEAR SIR,

'Having with some impatience reckoned upon hearing from you these two last posts, and been disappointed, I can form to myself no reason for the omission but your perturbation of mind, or disorder of body arising from it, and therefore I once more advise removal from Ashbourne as the proper remedy both for the cause and the effect.

'You perhaps ask, whither should I go? any whither where your case is not known, and where your presence will cause neither looks nor whispers. Where you are the necessary subject of common talk, you will not safely be at rest.

'If you cannot conveniently write to me yourself let somebody write for you to

'Dear Sir,

'Your most affectionate,

'SAM. JOHNSON.

'August 25, 1763.

'To the Reverend Dr. Taylor
in Ashbourne,
Derbyshire.'

Five other letters on the same subject are given in _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. pp. 324, 342, 382. Taylor and his wife 'never lived very well together' (p. 325), and at last she left him. On May 22nd of the next year Johnson congratulated Taylor 'upon the happy end of so vexatious an affair, the happyest [sic] that could be next to reformation and reconcilement' (p. 382). Taylor did not follow the advice to leave Ashbourne; for on Sept. 3 Johnson wrote to him:--'You seem to be so well pleased to be where you are, that I shall not now press your removal; but do not believe that every one who rails at your wife wishes well to you. A small country town is not the place in which one would chuse to quarrel with a wife; every human being in such places is a spy.' _Ib_. p. 343.

[1391] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 210) he was accompanied by his black servant Frank. 'I must have you know, ladies,' said he, 'that Frank has carried the empire of Cupid further than most men. When I was in Lincolnshire so many years ago he attended me thither; and when we returned home together, I found that a female haymaker had followed him to London for love.' If this story is generally true, it bears the mark of Mrs. Piozzi's usual inaccuracy. The visit was paid early in the year, and was over in February; what haymakers were there at that season?

[1392] Boswell by his quotation marks refers, I think, to his _Hebrides_, Oct. 24, 1773, where Johnson says:--'Nobody, at times, talks more laxly than I do.' See also _post_, ii. 73.

[1393] See _post_, April 26, 1776, for old Mr. Langton's slowness of understanding.

[1394] See _ante_, i. 320.

[1395] Mr. Best (_Memorials_, p. 65) thus writes of a visit to Langton:--'We walked to the top of a very steep hill behind the house. Langton said, "Poor dear Dr. Johnson, when he came to this spot, turned back to look down the hill, and said he was determined to take a roll down. When we understood what he meant to do, we endeavoured to dissuade him; but he was resolute, saying, he had not had a roll for a long time; and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever might be in them, and laying himself parallel with the edge of the hill, he actually descended, turning himself over and over till he came to the bottom." This story was told with such gravity, and with an air of such affectionate remembrance of a departed friend, that it was impossible to suppose this extraordinary freak an invention of Mr. Langton.' It must have been in the winter that he had this roll.

[1396] Boswell himself so calls it in a Mr. letter to Temple written three or four months after Garrick's death, _Letters of Boswell_, p. 242. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773.

[1397] Malone says:--'Reynolds was the original founder of our Literary Club about the year 1762, the first thought of which he started to Dr. Johnson at his own fireside.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 434. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 122) says:--'Johnson called Reynolds their Romulus, or said somebody else of the company called him so, which was more likely.' According to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 425) the Club was founded in the winter of 1763, i.e. 1763-4.

[1398] Dr. Nugent, a physician, was Burke's father-in-law. Macaulay (_Essays_, i. 407) says:--'As we close Boswell's book, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson.' It was from Mrs. Piozzi that Macaulay learnt of the omelet. Nugent was a Roman Catholic, and it was on Friday that the Club before long came to meet. We may assume that he would not on that day eat meat. 'I fancy,' Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p. 122), 'Dr. Nugent ordered an omelet sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night; for I remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sensations at the sight of that dish soon after his death, and cried:--"Ah my poor dear friend! I shall never eat omelet with _thee_ again!" quite in an agony.' Dr. Nugent, in the imaginary college at St. Andrews, was to be the professor of physic. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773.

[1399] Mr. Andrew Chamier was of Huguenot descent, and had been a stock-broker. He was a man of liberal education. 'He acquired such a fortune as enabled him, though young, to quit business, and become, what indeed he seemed by nature intended for, a gentleman.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 422. In 1764 he was Secretary in the War Office. In 1775 he was appointed Under Secretary of State. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 310. He was to be the professor of commercial politics in the imaginary college. Johnson passed one of his birth-days at his house; _post_, under Sept. 9, 1779, note.

[1400] 'It was Johnson's intention,' writes Hawkins (_Life_, p. 423), 'that their number should not exceed nine.' Nine was the number of the Ivy Lane Club (_ante_, p. 190). Johnson, I suppose, looked upon nine as the most _clubable_ number. 'It was intended,' says Dr. Percy, 'that if only two of these chanced to meet for the evening, they should be able to entertain each other.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 70. Hawkins adds that 'Mr. Dyer (_post_, 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_), a member of the Ivy Lane Club, who for some years had been abroad, made his appearance among us, and was cordially received.' According to Dr. Percy, by 1768 not only had Hawkins formally withdrawn, but Beauclerk had forsaken the club for more fashionable ones. 'Upon this the Club agreed to increase their number to twelve; every new member was to be elected by ballot, and one black ball was sufficient for exclusion. Mr. Beauclerk then desired to be restored to the Society, and the following new members were introduced on Monday, Feb. 15, 1768; Sir R. Chambers, Dr. Percy and Mr. Colman.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 72. In the list in Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844, ii. 326, the election of Percy and Chambers is placed in 1765.

[1401] Boswell wrote on April 4, 1775:--'I dine, Friday, at the Turk's Head, Gerrard-street, with our Club, Sir Joshua Reynolds, etc., who now dine once a month, and sup every Friday.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 186. In 1766, Monday was the night of meeting. _Post_, May 10, 1766. In Dec. 1772 the night was changed to Friday. Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 72. Hawkins says (_Life_, pp. 424, 5):--'We seldom got together till nine; preparing supper took up till ten; and by the time that the table was cleared, it was near eleven. Our evening toast was the motto of Padre Paolo, _Esto perpetua! Esto perpetua_ was being soon not Padre Paolo's motto, but his dying prayer. 'As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, "_Esto perpetua_" mayst thou last for ever; which was understood to be a prayer for the prosperity of his country.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 269.

[1402] See _post_, March 14, 1777.

[1403] 'After 1783 it removed to Prince's in Sackville-street, and on his house being soon afterwards shut up, it removed to Baxter's, which subsequently became Thomas's, in Dover-street. In January 1792 it removed to Parsloe's, in St. James's-street; and on February 26, 1799, to the Thatched-house in the same street.' Forster's _Goldsmith_ i. 311.

[1404] The second edition is here spoken of. MALONE.

[1405] _Life of Johnson_, p. 425. BOSWELL.